#literature

The true reader reads every work seriously in the sense that he reads it whole-heartedly, makes himself as receptive as he can. But for that very reason he cannot possibly read every work solemly or gravely. For he will read 'in the same spirit that the author writ.'... He will never commit the error of trying to munch whipped cream as if it were venison. ↗

— C.S. Lewis

#books #criticism #humor #interpretation #literature

But you have read Madame Bovary?' (I'd never heard of her books.) 'No. ↗

— David Mitchell

#literature #humor

God really must have had a sense of humor, because if I had to name my biggest turn-on, it was literature. And he had just recommended a book that I didn’t know, that wasn’t taught in school. If I were single, there would be no better pick-up line. ↗

— Kody Keplinger

#turn-on #humor

I shouted the perfect words to scare him off. It was just the delivery (and only the delivery) that made me sound like a twelve-year-old girl with pee running down her leg. I felt dirty and stupid. ↗

— Graham Parke

#humor #literature #humor

Death is the Inevitable Price We Must Pay. ↗

— Ellen J. Barrier

#literature #novel #relatio #romance #death

I don't believe in ONE holy book. I believe all books are holy. Of course, some books are holy shit. ↗

— John R. Lindensmith

#literature #religion #humor

The vast majority of us imagine ourselves as like literature people or math people. But the truth is that the massive processor known as the human brain is neither a literature organ or a math organ. It is both and more. ↗

— John Green

#comparison #literature #math #imagination

Esteem him! Like him! Cold-hearted Elinor! Oh! worse than cold-hearted! Ashamed of being otherwise. Use those words again, and I will leave the room this moment. ↗

— Jane Austen

#literature #love #marianne-dashwood #quote #sense-sensibility

She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her. She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. ↗

— Zora Neale Hurston

#women #love

Love, it is said, is blind, but love is not blind. It is an extra eye, which shows us what is most worthy of regard. To see the best is to see most clearly, and it is the lover's privilege. ↗

— J.M. Barrie

#fiction #literature #love